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The MoD, headed by Philip Hammond (pictured), says it has banned staff from calling 118 numbers, but claimed some staff in isolated areas still used the services

Staff at the Department of Work and Pensions also called directory
enquiries 97,265 times over the same period, costing the taxpayer
£72,387, according to figures released to Sky News.

Iain Duncan Smith has been trying to cut the £200billion-a-year bill for welfare and tax credits with changes to benefits.

Smith is forcing those on incapacity benefit to undergo strict new tests, cutting payments to those out of work and charging council housing tenants for bedrooms they are not using.

An MoD spokesman said: 'Calls to directory enquiries from the majority of the 260,000 MoD fixed phone lines are banned but some staff working in isolated locations, who do not have access to a military phone network or the internet, are able to call directory enquiries to obtain contact details.'

A DWP spokesperson said the 118 numbers are used by jobseekers or their advisers when
looking for work, and that the costs of these calls have been cut by more than
two thirds since 2010.

The news comes just two months after MoD
staff were outed for spending £40,000 calling the speaking clock 158,640
times in just two years.

Staff were also banned from calling 123 to check the time, but that hasn't stopped them running up a bill of more than £6,000 this year alone.

They were even given a list of websites they could use to get the time free, but the final bill for 2012 was £18,804 and £15,162 in 2011.

At the time an MoD spokesman said: 'A ban was introduced to our newest telephone network, but due to a technical error with some IT servers there has been some inadvertent spending on the speaking clock which has now been stopped.'

Most of the numbers are believed to be available free online, while staff were given a list of websites to visit to get the time